Carbon focus of London waste plans scrutinised

The London Mayor's plans to emphasise carbon savings over weight-based targets were subject to scrutiny over the cost and complexity of the proposals at this week's (January 26) London Conference.

At the event, which was organised by letsrecycle.com and sponsored by Powerday, Andrew Richmond, policy and programmes manager at the Greater London Authority, outlined the Mayor's proposal, which would see the introduction of an Emissions Performance Standard (EPS) for London boroughs.

Opening the event, Mr Richmond gave an overview of how the EPS system, which was devised by Eunomia Consultancy, would enable “lower performing” boroughs to focus efforts on collecting carbon intensive material like plastics and textiles rather than chasing weight-based tonnages.

The EPS emerged as a key theme of the second draft of the Mayor's Municipal Waste Management Strategy when it was published for consultation in October 2010 (see letsrecycle.com story).

Commenting on the need to prioritise carbon savings, Mr Richmond said: “It looks at the future of all waste materials and diverting biomass waste from landfill into recycling, composting or energy generation, each of which has varying contribution to the CO2 balance that we have to address,” he said.

Mr Richmond added that councils would be able to be “autonomous” and “flexible” with regards to what they collected. This, he said, would also help marry the aims of the Mayor's municipal waste strategy to his climate change strategy, which requires a 1.2 million tonnes reduction in carbon dioxide equivalents by 2015 and 1.6 million tonnes in savings by 2031.

Complex

However, consultant David Riddle raised concerns about whether achieving the carbon savings had been costed properly, as they would focus on the intangible principle of carbon emissions savings and not the volume of material being collected.

This point was picked up by Michael Ojo, head of environment at representative body London Councils, who said: “Targets have got to be costed with a long term policy document and what we have in the current draft strategy is a mish-mash of conflicting targets. If climate change [abatement] is the primary issue, then we have got to ensure that the targets we set work towards that.”

Responding to this, Mr Richmond said: “The Mayor has a responsibility to look at the next 20 years of waste management in London. If you go back to 2003, there was a discussion that no council could recycle over 25% of its waste and look where we are. We have to look at the long term impacts of what we introduce now.”

In his presentation, Mr Richmond also outlined other themes of the strategy, such as the economic opportunities for waste and recycling in the capital and the dedicated business waste strategy. The municipal waste strategy is set to be published in full in May 2011.

Funding

Also speaking at the event, Wayne Hubbard, head of business development at the London Waste & Recycling Board, outlined the potential for funding infrastructure in the capital.

The Board, which was established in 2008, has positioned itself as a funding mechanism and strategic steer for projects in the capital but Mr Hubbard was keen to assert that is “not the first stop for cheap finance.”

Mr Hubbard said that the Board would seek to use its £73.4 million – which is a reduction from its original allocation of £84 million – to support “real projects” of vital importance but also bankable.

“We are not interested in developing projects which are way off in terms of market viability,” he said.

Acknowledging the harsh banking climate, Mr Hubbard said debt finance was hard to secure for projects less than £25 million in project costs and banks were keener on the £100 million end of the scale.